


After the End

by Shammoner



Series: The Cobalt Chronicles [1]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Developing Relationship, F/M, Injury, MSQ Retelling/Novelization, PTSD issues, Slow Burn, anger issues, mild body horror
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-25
Updated: 2017-11-14
Packaged: 2019-01-05 09:49:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12187668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shammoner/pseuds/Shammoner
Summary: The end of the world came and went, and for Rajiya Fharis, trying to recover turned her world upside down.Fortunately, something--call it fate or luck--put someone in her life that would help her recover just in time for the next crisis to make itself known.(Part one of a dramatic retelling of the MSQ featuring my Free Company.  Lots and lots of OCs.)





	1. A Shroud Unfamiliar

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone. As noted this is me working my way through my character's story and how it intersects with FFXIV's. As such, she is a Warrior of Light in this, as are the other members of her FC.
> 
> I'll be taking dramatic liberty with some things as I go, but I do try to stay true to lore/game canon as much as is humanly possible. I'm not going to cover every single thing, either, so this is as much an abridgement as it is a retelling.
> 
> Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoy the adventures of the Cobalt Echoes.

Suddenly, it was dark.

Rajiya blinked quickly, briefly considering that she might be dead.  It was silent, too; her ears practically rang with the cessation of the hellish din of war she’d left behind.

Nothing made sense for a few long moments, and then pain hit her like a hammer.  Her right arm throbbed, all the ragged gashes spiraling around it lighting up in agony at the same moment.  She gasped and crumpled, knees hitting--not the stone and grit of Carteneau.  Soft earth, and softer grass…

She blinked again, willing away the involuntary tears that filled her eyes, and the scene slowly started to clear.  It was dark because it was night, and her eyes needed to adjust--adjust from the scene of flame and terror, the shape of the massive dragon and the ominous spires that had preceded its escape from the shell of Dalamud.  From the growing brilliance as lines of fire and aether spiraled to the wyrm’s command, as a growing gleam surrounded her and the others remaining on the battlefield--

It was dark, and she was not in Carteneau.  Her nose caught up after a moment, the scent of Garlean munitions and ash slowly being replaced by the smell of plants and soil and pondwater.

She was in the Twelveswood.  She was, against all expectations, home.  Once she knew that, she lifted her head, and far above, pinpricks of starlight showed through the canopy above.  Back down, and she saw what she’d missed in her haze; a pond, no...a spring, choked with vegetation, no longer running.  Overgrown with waterweeds, lilies, and full of pondscum, the water barely rippled, and as the shock of her sudden appearance subsided, the tiny sounds of nighttime creatures filled the air.  The croaks and peeps of frogs, the buzzing of insects, the calls of night-flying birds.

This, too, was wrong.  She knew this spring--it was one of her haunts, a well-hidden refuge in the eastern reaches of the Twelveswood.  Reaching it required climbing under and over a section of crumbled rockface and massive tree roots, and she loved it primarily due to its inaccessibility.  What made it wrong was the state of the spring itself; she’d cleaned it out just a couple of weeks before, on her last trip home.  A silly thing to worry about on what might be her last time in the woods ever, but it had calmed her nerves.

A pang of agony from her arm distracted her train of thought, and she merely sighed, drawing her belt-knife left handed and leaning in.  She chopped at trailing vines and cut furrows in the muck and silt until the water ran clean again, pouring down into the basin.  Cleaned of waterweeds and with the lilies thinned out, the pondscum quickly departed as well, pouring out with the water and away down the channel she’d cleaned and cut deeper.

She sat back on her haunches, cleaning and sheathing the knife, and then scooped up a handful of water, splashing it on her face.  It came away a reddish-brown mess, stained with dust and blood and ash.  A second handful went onto the jagged tear on her right arm, and she nearly screamed as fresh pain wound its way through her whole body.

Gritting her teeth, she dug in her packs, coming up with the last of her bandages.  She cleaned the wound as best she could--from its start, almost to her shoulder, and all the way down to where it ended, on the back of her hand.  Wrapping it was harder, but she did her best.  The end result was bulky, crooked, and immobile, so she fashioned the braces from her tunic into a sling, binding it to her chest.

She was in terrible shape, and she needed proper medical care, not just pondwater and old bandages in the depths of the forest.  She looked longingly at the soft grass and ferns growing near the spring, but she knew she couldn’t lie down and rest.  She had to move.

So move she did--up to her feet, the remains of her pack and her shattered bow slung across her left shoulder, and the sad little belt knife in hand--her only weapon.  She then began pushing her way through the vegetation, heading in a direction that would lead her back to the central woods and home.


	2. Through the Haze

She came back to her senses fully some time later, horrendously confused by the sense of movement her battered body was insistently warning her of.  Opening her eyes--with difficulty, as they were gritty and burning--she found herself in the back of a chocobo carriage.  A quick look around confirmed three other passengers--a Hyuran man with a blond beard garbed in dark colors, and two Elezen youths leaning against one another, asleep.  She turned her gaze--with great difficulty--to the terrain outside, and was taken aback to see arid scrubland, a cliff falling away to the north with a hint of glistening water cradled within.

Where  _ was _ she?  How had she lost so much time?  The last thing she remembered, she’d been trying to find her way through the Shroud, back to Gridania and home.  Her arm was still a molten, seething wreck of pain, and she instinctively knew it had only gotten worse.  What of her plan to go home and get some help?

Her memories were very slimy and hard to pin down, which concerned her greatly.  The woods at night, dark and deep and worryingly unfamiliar, the darkened streets of Gridania, the softly-lit pathways of the Keeper neighborhood her mother lived in...nothing of her mother, except for perhaps a vague suggestion of a blank face.  Nothing of leaving the city, undoubtedly in a carriage--perhaps this same one?

She reached for her belt-pouch and found it flat.  Whatever pittance of gil she’d had on her after her reappearance, it was obvious that she’d paid it all out for transportation.  That was even more worrying, because where was she bound?  How in the blazes would she find her way back, or to somewhere else safe, without a coin to her name?

“Easy, lass,” the Hyuran fellow said, perhaps sensing her rising panic.  “You woke up out of one nightmare and look as if you’ve fallen into another.  Looks like you’re ill with more than just the aether sickness to me.”

“I...yes, I was injured…” she cast her thoughts back to Carteneau, even the fog of her injury unable to dull the grisly image of the Dreadwyrm burned into her mind, the ringing laugh of the Garlean that’d mauled her.  “...it must have been a day or so ago.  Garleans.”

His brow furrowed and he spat off the side of the carriage.  “Aye, adds up.  You’d think the Calamity would have sent them running, but they’ve still got their hooks in us.  A body gets tired of them, but it’ll take a miracle to uproot them, I bet.”

She was stunned out of speech for a long moment as failed to take in his words.  The Calamity?  The word was ominous in the extreme, but nothing in even her strained memories matched up.  She’d never heard of anything bad enough to be labeled ‘The Calamity’--the way he’d said it implied capital letters, a grim sort of emphasis--certainly not in Gridania, and if something that bad had happened in one of the other city-states, surely she’d have heard of it?  She might have only joined the Adders shortly before the march to Carteneau, but it wasn’t as if she’d had her head stuck in the mud before that.  Her sleep schedule had shifted wildly off of a normal Keeper’s nocturnal lean because of her changing shifts at the Gods’ Quiver, which had led to her taking meals at odd times in the Carline Canopy and hearing all kinds of news in the bargain.  Sure, a lot of it had been ominous--one of the reasons she’d joined the Adders in the first place--but she hadn’t heard of anything called the Calamity.

“Lass, you’re driftin’ bad,” the man said, sounding legitimately concerned.  “I know Bremondt told me to keep my eye on you ‘til you were on the ferry and I could hand you off to Brennan, but I’m startin’ to worry if you’d even survive the voyage to Limsa.”

That brought her back to the present, just a bit.  She had an answer to where she was bound, at least.  Limsa Lominsa...the one city-state she had virtually no ties to.  She had even less idea what her past self had been thinking, now, but some vague sense told her it had to do with her mother’s blank expression, still fixed in her mind’s eye as unwaveringly as the specter of that horrid dragon.

“I’m...I’ll be fine,” she assured him.  “I’m sorry that I’m drifting so.  Arm hurts quite a bit, think I might be running a fever.”

He still looked concerned, but he merely sat back on his bench, reaching for a waterskin at his side and holding it out.  “Have a drink,” he suggested.  “At least we’re near up on Horizon, so it won’t be too much longer before we reach Vesper Bay.”

She nodded and took the waterskin with thanks, coughing slightly at the first sip of warm, leather-tasting water, but relishing the second as it soothed her parched mouth and burning throat a bit.  Mindful of the desert clime, she drank only a little before passing it back over.

If the man had told her his name, she’d forgotten it, and it now seemed rude to ask.  She glanced briefly at the Elezen, this time pausing long enough to note just how similar they looked.  Twins?  Must be.  Their features were androgynous enough that she didn’t want to make any guesses about gender, either.  Both were asleep, as it were, so she looked away, out at the landscape.  The man had spoken true, for the walls of a settlement were coming into view, adorned with black banners bearing the flame-and-jewel of Ul’dah.

Something still seemed so totally off about everything, though.  Her fevered mind was leaping from point to point too fast for her to follow, a rapid succession of thought that went something like  _ forest not right-city not right-mother didn’t recognize-cities are different-what’s the Calamity… _

Finally her mind lit on the one thing that was impossible to ignore, that up to this moment she hadn’t contemplated for more than a second.  How, exactly, had she gone from Carteneau to the depths of the Twelveswood?  Why had everything changed so much?

She felt woozy and uncomfortable, her arm throbbing with a new wave of pain, and she felt her eyes drifting shut.

* * *

When she awoke next, it was to someone shaking her shoulder--thankfully her left shoulder, because if anyone had touched her right, she was sure she’d have scared off the whole settlement by shrieking and leaping into the air.  It wasn’t the man who’d been in the carriage, but one that looked much the same, wearing red instead of dark colors.

“On your feet, lass, if you can,” he said.  “M’name’s Brennan, and I’ll keep an eye on you like Brendt asked me to til you get to Limsa.  Ferry’s close to leavin’, though.”

She got to her feet, her entire body stiff and achey, and followed his lead as he stepped forward.  Ahead, she could see the vague shape of the Elezen twins boarding a ship, and she had the presence of mind to glance over her shoulder as she walked.  Sure enough, her other travel companion was standing near the carriage, and nodded encouragingly as their eyes met.  She lifted her good arm in a gesture of farewell, and then hurried to follow Brennan onto the ship proper.

She was soon settled in belowdecks, on a bench across the cabin from the Elezen twins this time, and Brennan sat near her.  The two youths were talking to each other about something, but their voices were hushed and conspiratorial.  She wasn’t much of an eavesdropper, anyroad, so she looked at Brennan, hesitating before she spoke.

“I’m...sorry that I’m so very out of it,” she said softly.  “Things have been passing strange for me for the past few days, and I’m not sure if it’s the fever or…”

“Could be a lot of things,” he said sympathetically, leaning against the cushioned backrest of the bench.  “Like as not, the aether currents are hitting you harder than most since you’re in a bad way as is.  I don’t suppose you remember why you were so desperate to get to Limsa?”

She shook her head, feeling her stomach drop as she considered the implications.  Why had she chosen Limsa?  She could only chalk it up to an impaired mental state from her injury, but it seemed excessive even then, and to use  _ all _ of her gil on travel was beyond foolish.  She knew that her arm wasn’t getting better--quite the opposite, really--and that she was likely to rot away on the grimy piers if a pirate didn’t get to her first.

There were confusing fragments from her dreams, too, as it went.  A sense of mothering, but not her actual mother, a flash of a black-robed figure that chilled her to the bone, a flash of light in her hands that couldn’t seem to settle on a shape--knife, bow, axe, flickering wildly until she spun and sank it deep into the chest of her foe.  A quiet, but far-reaching voice imparting a desperately important message to her, one she could no longer remember.  A darkened dreamscape, shining brilliance, a soft drift of dark blue.

She was so confused, and so lost, and she had a sinking feeling that she was about to be so  _ dead _ , too.


	3. Call me Weaver

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The specific date I worked off of for the Battle of Carteneau in this chapter was November 11, or the 11th Sun of the Sixth Astral Moon, simply because that was the date the 1.0 servers shut down. I was unable to find out if they had assigned a specific date to the Battle of Carteneau in the actual game canon. It's probably wildly incorrect, but it's what I went with for story purposes.

She drifted in and out of consciousness as the ship made its way to Limsa Lominsa.  The quiet conversation of the Elezen twins was little more than a duet of fluting, almost birdlike voices to her fevered mind, and Brennan’s occasional mumbled concern and, once, the press of his hand against her forehead barely registered either.  When the ship’s movement slowed and the calls of gulls joined the murmuring voices of the twins, she  _ forced _ herself back to the waking world with all of her strength.

Brennan was watching her with open concern, but the twins were already going--she could see the end of a silvery-white braid vanishing through the door that led abovedecks.

“Lass, I think y’might be in real trouble,” the Hyuran man said at last.

“I’ll be fine,” she croaked out.  It was a rote response, born of long training and sheer stubbornness, a core of her locked tight with the fierce desire to not show weakness--or at least not to succumb.  Trying to prove her point, she started to her feet, the dull ache in her arm nearly forgotten until she tried to use her arms to push herself up.

The pain was unreal as her hand pressed down against the cushion, and tears sprang to her eyes unbidden.  Brennan reached out as if to help her, but she swatted her left hand at the air.   _ Leave me alone _ , she thought sharply.   _ Let me do it. _

A second push, with only her left hand this time, got her to her feet, and she began to walk, slowly, toward the stairs.  Brennan trailed behind, anxiously, as she moved, probably expecting catastrophe the entire way, for her to collapse or, failing that, perhaps tip off the gangplank and fall into the ocean.

She made her way to the wood and stone of the Limsan docks without further incidence.  Stopping at the end of the gangplank even as she continued on, he cleared his throat, and when she looked back, he spoke.

“Lass, I still think you’re in big trouble,” he said, his tone serious.  “But I gotta catch the boat back, and they wait on no man when profits are on the line.”  He dug around in a pocket, then took her left hand and pressed something into her palm.  “Just take this to th’ owner of the Drownin’ Wench, bloke name of Baderon.  He’ll know what it means.  And lass?”

She looked up at him, trying to ignore how her vision was almost...blurry around the edge, like a window smeared with grease.

“Hope we meet again one day.”

He turned to head back into the ship, his shoulders squared with misgivings, and she merely sighed and went on her own way.  The port was crowded, the light tending toward sunset, and people were shouting and shoving.  It was all she could do to keep her arm from being the inadvertent target for a burly sailor’s shove, and she was exhausted before she’d gone more than fifteen fulms.  To complicate matters, no few of even the more experienced sailors were glancing seaward with wary expressions, and when she focused, she heard an unwelcome word repeated over and over from a dozen throats.

_ Storm. _

If there was a storm coming, she knew she was done for; there was no way she’d make it across the city in her state, not in the middle of a raging downpour.  She struggled to press her way closer to the gates ahead, but one brush against her arm was enough to send her to her knees, and at that point even her wellspring of stubbornness gave out.  She hunched forward, trying to pretend there weren’t hot tears falling to the stones beneath her, that her mind wasn’t reeling with despair and anger.

To survive the Dreadwyrm’s assault and somehow end up back home, only to be driven from the Twelveswood by a despair still muddy in her fevered mind, and to find herself dying on the unfamiliar stones on the other side of Eorzea? It awakened a rage within her she was utterly unable to do anything with.  A muted scream reached her lips, the fingers of her left hand convulsing on the stone, but there was no strength in that grip, no ability to push herself back to her feet and soldier on.  Her spirit was a towering flame, but her body had given out.

Perhaps that was why it took her so long to notice the faint blue glow right in front of her, to angle her face up just enough to see what was going on.  She was utterly unable to grasp what she was looking at for a moment--some kind of small animal, with a trefoil tail and ridiculously large ears, its coat blue and glowing faintly, as was the red gem in its forehead.

_ This is it, _ she thought suddenly.   _ I’ve gone mad.  Some people see their lives flash before their eyes, and I see glowing blue animals. _

“...are you a psychopomp?” she asked after a moment, her voice slurred a bit.

The creature tilted its head to the side and yipped.  It sniffed of her, and when its nose got close to her right hand, it recoiled as if in pain, and yipped louder, in something that sounded almost like an alarm pattern.

Her mind was blank of expectations, which was probably a net positive, because the actual events that followed would have shattered them regardless.

“What  _ now,  _ Carby?” an irate voice shouted.  “There’s a Gods-damned storm bearing down on us and everyone’s taking advantage of it, now is  _ not _ the time--”

The voice went quiet, and Rajiya managed to look up slightly, spotting a Midlander man who was looking at her with something she hadn’t really expected; a fairly calm, analytical air, though his brow was furrowed.

“Never mind,” he said, quieter, and reached down to scratch the creature behind its ears as he walked over.  “Good job, buddy.”  He then looked at Rajiya,  his face still mostly blank.

“You’re in real bad shape,” he said at last, bluntly, and the utter frankness of his tone startled a tiny laugh out of her.

“Tell me something I don’t know,” she replied, pushing herself up a bit with her good arm.

“Okay,” he said.  “Though I can’t tell everything from a surface analysis, whatever injury you’ve got inexpertly bandaged there has probably progressed to a point that you’re looking at serious infection, possibly systemic, maybe even gangrene, and I’ll be impressed if I don’t end up having to amputate.”

The thought of losing her arm hadn’t yet occurred to Rajiya, and she suppressed a shiver as she looked up at him.  Rather than argue, she licked her lips before replying.  “You’re a chirurgeon?”

“I know some field medicine and arcanima,” he replied briskly, then reached down, grabbing her left arm in a no-nonsense but otherwise gentle grip.  Hauling her up with no more effort than one might employ on a bag of flour, he settled her good arm around his shoulders and began walking.

“Where are you taking me?” she thought to ask.

“Yellowjackets and the Gate have set up a kind of clinic down here,” he said.  “It’s mostly for quarantine purposes--don’t want someone hopping off a ship with hemorrhagic fever and spreading it to half the city before we catch them--but every so often we get people with traumatic injuries like yours.  We’ll probably have a few of those tomorrow after ships caught in the storm limp into port.”

She was quiet for another long moment as they walked--or rather, he walked and she staggered--toward a doorway in the walls ahead.

“I don’t have much gil,” she said at last.  “Hardly any, really.  Just this ring that fellow told me to give to Ba...Baderon?  In the Drowned Wench.”

“Drowning Wench,” he corrected idly.  “Worry about that after I get you patched up.  No charge.”

She was highly suspicious of that statement, particularly in Limsa, but they stepped through the door at that point and her life became a highly efficient whirlwind of activity as the man had a Yellowjacket physically carry her to a bed--not a sensation she particularly enjoyed--and swanned off to take care of something else for a moment.  His glowing blue...whatever-it-was, a familiar, perhaps?...stayed behind, hopping up onto the blankets at the foot of the bed and curling up at her feet, for all the world like an attentive pet dog or cat keeping its master company.  It had a pleasing solidity to its form, if not as much warmth as she’d have expected from its glow.

She drifted for a little bit, eyes unfocused.  In any case, there wasn’t much to see--curtains separated the beds, and the ceiling overhead was fairly unremarkable wood with iron fittings.  The bedside table had a small lamp, a pitcher, and a mug, and a stand near the foot of the bed had a basin and another pitcher.  That was it, as far as she could see.

She didn’t end up having to wait long, because her savior returned, wearing a chirurgeon’s apron, with another Yellowjacket in tow.  She was hauled up again and carried to an operating table with much better light--bright enough she didn’t much care to have her eyes open, in fact.  She closed them and listened to the faint noises of the man’s movement instead.

“Do you have a name?” he asked.

“No,” she replied sarcastically.  “I have a registration number.  Yes, I have a name.  It’s Rajiya Fharis.”

She heard the scratch of a quill on parchment.  “Where are you from?”

“Gridania.  I’m Forestborn.”

Another series of scratches.  “And who is the current ruler of Gridania?”

“You don’t know?” she asked, peeking at him.  He looked unamused, and she guessed that the questions were more to judge her lucidity than anything.  “The Elder Seedseer Kan-e-Senna, head of the Seedseer Council and the Order of the Twin Adders,” she said, and he seemed satisfied with that answer.

“Current date, or nearest guess?” he said.

That one was trickier.  She hoped her nearest guess would be close enough.  “Eh...somewhere around the 15th sun of the Sixth Astral, year 1572 of the Sixth Astral Era.”

His writing slowed as she finished her sentence, then stopped, and she glanced over at him.  He was looking at her with a particularly piercing sort of expression, and she was briefly nervous before he looked back down at the papers and began writing furiously.  She swallowed her dismay--that couldn’t be a good sign.

His familiar found them at that point and took up residence on her feet again, which she found strangely comforting.  He finished writing, reached over to scratch the critter behind its ears, then looked to her.  “I’m going to have to take the bandages off now.  Do you want something to bite down on?”

She nodded, and he fished a strip of leather out of a drawer, handing it to her.

“Before this starts, can I ask your name?” she inquired.  He started, as if unaware he hadn’t told her already.

“Roland Weaver,” he said.  “But call me Weaver.  Only my parents call me Roland.”

She managed a smile, bit down on the leather, and tried to prepare herself for the worst.


	4. Beloved Daughter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rough surgery in this one; possibly upsetting descriptions.

The first tug of the bandages rekindled the searing pain in Rajiya’s arm, and she clamped her teeth down tighter on the leather, resolute.  Weaver hummed to himself faintly, brow creased in concentration, and reached for the pitcher of water nearby, pouring a bit at a time on the bandages until they were sodden.  That made them easier to peel away, but the smell was indescribable, even to Rajiya’s dulled senses.

“By the Twelve,” she heard Weaver murmur as he began to expose the wound.  “How are you still alive?”

Anger, she wanted to reply.  Dissatisfaction.  Stubbornness.  Instead, she merely bit down harder and waited.  Ilm by ilm, the Midlander pulled the bandages free, until her entire wound was revealed.  She couldn’t see it, but she could  _ smell _ it, and it was not a pleasant sensation.

“You’re probably looking at a systemic infection at the very least,” he said, gauging the injury from a couple of different angles.  “Looks gangrenous, even.  I might have to amputate.”

That frightened her as nothing had yet.  She couldn’t draw a bow with one arm!  Something in her gaze must have conveyed her fear, because his look became worried, then a bit angry, and finally settled into acceptance.

“Okay,” he said.  “I’ll do what I can to save it.  This isn’t going to be fun, though.”

She snorted, audibly, the best reaction she could manage with her teeth sunk into the leather.  Understatement of the century, perhaps.

He looked up and called out a name--Falkswys--and then went to a cabinet over to one side of the miniature operating theater.  A Sea Wolf woman with long, silvery hair stepped around the partitions, her yellow shirt shining in the light.  She looked at Weaver, then down at Rajiya’s arm, and visibly winced.

“I need you to hold her down,” Weaver said, returning to the table with an armful of necessities.  Rajiya couldn’t really see what he was holding, and only heard metallic clinks and softer noises as he put everything down.  She saw the glint of light off a thin knife, though, as he lifted it up and looked down at Rajiya’s injured arm.  Falkswys nodded, moved to Rajiya’s side, and leaned over her, pinning her at chest and hips with her arms.

The first cut was terrible.  Rajiya screamed, nearly dislodging the leather strip, and then it  _ continued _ .  Mercilessly, he began to cut away at her wound, starting at the shoulder and moving down.  It echoed the initial attack, but worse, somehow--slower.  He was being very careful, she could tell, draining away pus and cutting at the inflamed flesh to clear away dead tissue.  She convulsed, unconsciously, but the Sea Wolf pinning her made sure she didn’t go anywhere.

It seemed like it had been hours, perhaps longer, when Weaver finished up on her hand.  He was holding it almost gently, in sharp contrast with the merciless swiping and peeling he was doing with that accursed knife.  By that time, Rajiya was beyond exhaustion, mind sinking into the numbness of shock and unending pain.  She heard the murmur of Weaver and Falkswys’ voices above her, but she couldn’t make out individual words.

There were other noises, shortly--the click of a glass jar being opened, a feeling of pressure at various points along her arm, and she could--very indistinctly--make out the flash of a smaller metal shape in Weaver’s fingers, and long, trailing threads.  A needle and suture, perhaps.  Everything felt increasingly distant, and the first pinprick of pain was nearly indistinguishable from the overwhelming tide that fogged her mind.

Falkswys was still there, but she’d released her grip a bit, and was just making sure Rajiya didn’t wiggle around too much.  The woman’s face was blurry, only her yellow shirt distinct, and she still couldn’t make out words as the Sea Wolf said something else to Weaver.  She could only tell that her voice sounded a bit urgent.

Weaver paused in his ministrations and peered at her closely, then looked up at Falkswys and shook his head.  He went back to the stitching even as he spoke.  The other woman sighed, her worry palpable.

Rajiya drifted closer and closer to oblivion as he worked.  She couldn’t tell if either of the others could tell how close she was to drifting away, but not even the constant pain was enough to keep her fully aware, and she found it impossible to care that her senses were failing.  Everything dimmed down to a formless, aching blur, her vision too foggy to even distinguish Falkswys’ yellow shirt, her hearing a useless buzz, other senses equally useless.

Perhaps that was why it shocked her so when she heard a voice of unparalleled clarity in her mind, breaking through the distant murmur of Weaver and Falkswys’ voices.

_ Warrior of Light, _ the voice said.   _ Beloved daughter.  This is not the end of your tale.  Be strong, and you will again stand tall. _

Incongruously, she could only think in an utterly banal way,  _ I grew up in Gridania, surrounded by Wildwoods and Midlanders.  I’ve never been tall. _

_ Rest, _ the voice said, heedless of her silly thought.   _ I will watch over you. _

She didn’t have a single clue who was speaking, or why she could hear them when everything else was a senseless blur, but the tone was oddly comforting, and so she surrendered herself to unconsciousness.

* * *

When she awoke, it was a slow process.  Everything hurt, still, but with the distance of old and healing wounds, not the immediacy of the surgery she’d been subjected to.  Sound came first, a slow filtering of voices both near and far, none as clear as the mysterious one she’d heard before her drift, but enough to make out words.

“...thank you, Scion,” she heard someone say.  A male voice, a familiar one.  Weaver? “I know you’re busy, but something about her aether is strange.  Just thought you should have a look.”

“Of course,” said another voice.  A woman’s, one she didn’t know.  “Best we know, in case something strange is afoot.”

There was a click and a strange, high-pitched hum, and a moment of silent, contemplative thought.  Then, the woman spoke again.  “Well, I don’t know what I expected...but not that.  I haven’t seen a reading like this in…”

“Five years?” the man asked, as if he had anticipated her reaction somehow.

“Just so.”  Another click, and a rustle of fabric.  “Thank you for bringing this to my attention.  I’ll let the Antecedent know.  For now, please keep an eye on her.  Make sure she recovers.”

“Planned to do that anyway,” she heard Weaver say.  There was a brief exchanging of pleasantries, and then the sound of the woman walking away.

Rajiya opened her eyes, her vision blurry at first, but focusing in gradually.  She’d been moved back to the screened off bed, and a weight at her feet told her that Weaver’s glowing blue familiar was still keeping her company.

“Ah, you’re waking up,” she heard the man in question say, and then he moved into her field of view.  “How are you feeling?”

“...confused,” she managed after a second.  “Everything is...fuzzy.”

“Well, we were worried we’d lost you when you went unconscious while we had you on the table,” he said without preamble.  “You held it together, though, somehow.  I’m...honestly not entirely sure how you lived.”

“Too stubborn to die,” she suggested, becoming aware of just how thirsty she was.  “Can I have some water?”

“Sure,” he said.  “Sit up so you don’t choke.  Just use your left arm.”

She was as weak as a day-old kitten, but she managed to push herself upright.  Her right arm was more or less immobile and wrapped in fresh bandages that smelled strongly astringent.  It still hurt, but not with the deep aching pain it had before.

“Your arm was a real piece of work,” he said as he poured a mug of water from the pitcher nearby.  “What happened to you?”

“Garlean,” she said.  “Spiked whip.  It caught me with my arm outstretched and wrapped around the whole thing, and then she dragged it back to do as much damage as she could.”  She shuddered reflexively, remembering the woman’s dark laughter.

“I wasn’t aware the Garleans had made that many incursions into the Shroud,” he said.  “I thought they were more or less content to hole up behind the wall and harass the sylphs every now and then.  Perhaps we should report it to the Adders?”

“Wasn’t in the Twelveswood,” she corrected automatically.  He raised an eyebrow at that, and she offered, “Mor Dhona.”  He seemed to accept that a bit more readily, but frowned.

“I’m impressed you made it from Mor Dhona to here without collapsing,” he said, holding the mug out.  She took it in her left hand--still shaky, but capable of holding a mug--and took a long sip of water.

“I...don’t know why I came here, or how I made it,” she said, for now deeming it better to not mention she’d somehow wound up back in the Twelveswood and started from there.  “I think I must have been delirious.  Something made me think coming here was a good idea.”

In the back of her mind, a half-remembered image of her mother’s uncomprehending expression briefly made itself known.  She tensed.  There was so much she didn’t remember from the days preceding her arrival in Limsa Lominsa that it made her nervous.

“Well, you’re in good hands now,” Weaver assured her.  The little creature at the foot of the bed yipped, and he added, “and paws.”  He looked at her thoughtfully before speaking again.  “Your tattoo is beautiful.  I’m sorry to say my sutures aren’t as neat and tidy as an Ul’dahn seamstress would like, so the scarring may break it up a bit.”

She hadn’t thought of that, and her left hand trembled, making a little water slosh out of the mug and onto her face.  She sputtered briefly, then recovered.  “Oh...it’s...I didn’t...that didn’t even occur to me,” she said at last, trying to ignore the tears that sprang to her eyes nearly unbidden.  Shame for being caught by a Garlean’s whip, despair at this disruption of something precious, rage at what had been done to her.  The tattoo had been done years past by an old friend, one she privately knew hadn’t made it out of Carteneau, even if she hadn’t seen the other woman’s body.

“A two-headed serpent is a bit odd, isn’t it?” Weaver said, either not noticing or ignoring the tears threatening to fall.  “The Twin Adder escutcheon has two serpents, not one with two heads.”

“It’s older than that,” she said.  “Something passed down by my family.  The adders on that banner don’t have their mouths open, either.”  She couldn’t see her whole tattoo by herself, but she remembered the design she’d passed off to Eir to see if it could be done; one serpent’s head was on the back of her neck, the sinuous body trailing down her right shoulder, looping back over onto her collarbone, then winding its way down her arm to end in another head on the back of her right hand.  It was a complex work and had taken a few sessions to complete, but she’d been delighted with the work, and it had been her pride and joy.

Now, without looking, but able to feel the thin lines of pain radiating from her right arm, she could picture all the places the serpent’s body had been stricken, where the flesh had been excised and stitched back together.  Places where it just wouldn’t quite meet up, instead looking like a serpent that had been cut into pieces and left to die on the ground.  The thought filled her with a sick rage--not enough that the Garlean had maimed her, possibly for life, but had also destroyed something she treasured.

“A thousand curses on the entire festering Garlean Empire,” she said, surprising even herself with the vehemence of her words.  “When I recover, I’ll drive the ones that remain from our home, and I’ll make them regret ever setting foot on Eorzean soil.”

Weaver stared for a moment, and then, to her surprise, chuckled.

“When you say it like that, I believe you can do it,” he said honestly.  “Mind if I come along for the ride?”

She stared at him, startled, and then answered his chuckle with one of her own.  The dour mood temporarily broken by laughter, she found herself smiling at him once the moment passed.

“Sure,” she offered.  “It’ll be useful to have someone who can patch a wound.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rajiya's tattoo is basically a monochrome, extended version of the serpent from the flag of Aht Urhgan from Final Fantasy XI. My roots are showing.


	5. In Dreams

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some of my personal thoughts on Miqo'te family structure here, though I've tried to stick close to actual game canon (things presented in Postmoogle quests and sidequests) and lore book info.

Despite her best intentions, Rajiya found herself growing sleepy fast.  Weaver hadn’t seemed surprised--merely showed her how her arm was bound so that she wouldn’t bend or flex it in her sleep, then tucked her in with instructions to send Carby (the name of his familiar, she learned) to get him if she needed anything.

He left fairly quickly after that, and with the little creature weighing down her feet, she sank into slumber.

* * *

Her dreams seemed determined to take her on a strange journey--to the past, to things she hadn’t thought of in years.  In what seemed like seconds after falling asleep, she found herself a toddler, held on her mother’s hip, as they stood in the clearing near the Leatherworker’s Guild to watch a competition her older sister had taken part in.

With the clarity of age, Rajiya noticed how  _ tired _ her mother was.  Rhaka had tended to keep traditional Keeper hours even if her daughters didn’t, but she’d gotten out of bed at noon today to support Zana.

Rajiya still remembered this, but her feelings hadn’t really changed--she watched as the awards were handed out.  First place had gone to a blonde Midlander girl for an admittedly excellent satchel.  The stitching and ornamentation was fine enough to have been done by one of the actual craftsmen of the guild.  After that, though, the prizes went to projects of highly variable quality made by Wildwood and Midlander youths, until Zana ended up with fifth place for her work gloves, which Rajiya knew were only slightly lesser in quality than the first-place satchel.

She didn’t seem able to control her past self’s actions, so she was a passive participant as, indignant, the tiny Rajiya looked at her mother.  “Momma, why didn’t Zana win?” she asked, pouting a bit.  “Her thing was better than the others.”

Rhaka sighed and looked around before retreating to the shade of a nearby tree, away from judging ears.  “It’s not fair, is it, Raj?” she said, sitting down and holding Rajiya in her lap.  “I’d hoped you’d be older before you had to learn this.  As Keepers, we have to be twice as strong and fast and clever as the best of them for them to think we’re half as good as the least among them.”

Toddler-Rajiya puzzled this out.  “But that’s not right.  Why can’t they see?”

“People are people,” Rhaka said, running a hand through Rajiya’s hair.  “They fear those who are different, and hold on to beliefs that aren’t true any longer.  The Wildwoods distrust us because of the poachers outside the city, for instance, even though us city Keepers follow the Elementals just like they do.”

“But that’s no good,” Rajiya whined.  “Won’t it just make Zana give up?”

Rhaka chuckled.  “No, little one.  Zana has been going through this for a while.  She has something to prove, and she knows that there will always be a few who see things for how they truly are.  Like that, see?”

Her mother lifted her up a bit so she could see Zana talking with the Hyuran girl.  Their conversation was animated, and the Midlander girl actually looked a little angry as she surveyed the other winning projects.  She was trying on Zana’s gloves, and looked...happy.  Satisfied, even.

“The Midlander girl knows that Zana was cheated out of a prize,” her mother explained.  “And she’ll remember that, mark my words.”

“Isn’t it hard?” Rajiya said, looking back at her mother.  “To have to be better than them all the time, only for them to think we’re not as good?”

“Of course,” Rhaka said.  “But we still have to try.  The world needs people with skills like ours.  Never forget that.”

* * *

The next dream-memory dropped Rajiya in an older body, a preteen girl, still growing and trying to get used to a shifting perspective on things.  She winced inwardly as she realized  _ when _ exactly it was, which memory she’d been dropped into.

She stormed into her mother’s home and slammed the door, finding her mother in the kitchen making breakfast as usual.

“Mother,” she asked harshly, almost accusingly, “am I a  _ bastard?” _

Rhaka’s startled look, followed by a fleeting mix of anger and sadness, still resonated with her.  All the fight had gone out of her in a moment, leaving confusion in its wake.

“Who said that?” her mother said.  “Let me guess.  Must have been a Wildwood or Midlander, right?  Not a Miqo’te, anyway.”

Rajiya nodded, mutely, still not certain what was happening.

“I’m sure you’ve noticed by now, you’re bright enough, but most of the other races have families a good bit different from ours,” Rhaka said, turning back to the stove.  “They tend to be married, bonded, whatever you want to call it, and have children within that pairing only.  At least ideally.  It often turns out that the man or the woman is unfaithful, and when that happens, they call the child a bastard.”

Rajiya sat down in a chair at the table.  “But...I mean, we just live here with you, and…”

“Right, I’m not bonded to anyone,” Rhaka said, drying her hands on a towel and fetching a bowl of cut apples for Rajiya to nibble on.  “But Rhesi’to and Thya’a both visit from time to time.  They’ve always been kind to all of you, haven’t they?  Rhesi’to has given you a Starlight present each year since you were born, even if he’s not your father.”

Rajiya nodded in response.  “Yes, and Thya’a gives a present to Zana and the twins.”

“Miqo’te families are different,” her mother explained further.  “Seeker communities are based on the tribal units left over from antiquity, and you’ll often see one man fathering most of the children for a while until he’s ousted from his position by another, usually a younger one.  Nunhs and Tias, and the women take the male’s given name as their surname.  We, on the other hand, form communities, several families living in the same place, and our males tend to be wanderers.  They might visit one woman in a community, or several, stay a night or stay a week.  They bring game and trade goods and we share in their company before they go on their way.  A woman’s children might all be by the same man, or might be by different men.  Just because Zana and the twins have the same father doesn’t mean that’s how it always goes for us.”

Rajiya absorbed it all quietly before looking up at her mother.  “So I’m not a...a bastard, like they said.”

Rhaka shook her head sharply.  “No.  Of course not.  For you to be a bastard, I would have to be bonded to Rhesi’to, and he’s a lovely man and a good merchant, but I wouldn’t want to  _ live _ with him.  He’s got children by at least two other women here in Gridania, anyway.  That’s just our way.”  She reached over to ruffle Rajiya’s hair.  “But the other three girls look like me, you see?  You’re the spitting image of Thya’a, and that’s just how it happens sometimes.  They think you’re someone’s by-blow because of that, but it couldn’t be further from the truth.”

Rajiya nibbled on an apple slice thoughtfully.  “So these people...they sometimes have children outside their bonding?  And they don’t love them as much?”

“When you say it like that, it sounds downright barbaric, doesn’t it?” her mother replied in a deceptively mild tone.  “Sometimes they’re welcomed into the family, loved just as much as the other children.  Sometimes the so-called true-born children resent them, though, especially if they’re given any kind of inheritance.  They don’t think it’s fair.”

“That sounds beastly,” Rajiya said flatly.  “Our way seems much simpler.  I’m a Fharis, and that’s all that matters.”

“That’s my girl,” Rhaka said warmly.  “Though, keep you this in mind: families take many different forms.  Just because they’re different doesn’t mean they’re  _ wrong _ .  Just that they’re different.  And if they can’t see the reverse about us, then it’s them that are in the wrong, my girl, not you.”

Rajiya smiled at her mother, and Rhaka finished her statement with something that would linger in Rajiya’s mind for a long time.

“And you said it best.  You’re a Fharis.  You’re my daughter, blood of my blood, and that will never change.  The stars themselves could fall from the sky and I’d never turn you away.  Always remember that.”

* * *

Rajiya woke slowly, and her mother’s words lingered in her mind as the fog of sleep parted.  Why was that ringing out to her so fiercely?   
Fragments of the last few days, of her flight from the Shroud, drifted to her mind like bubbles of marsh gas, percolating before they popped into bursts of insight.

The Twelveswood had changed, somehow.  Things weren’t how she remembered.

She had fled home, in terrible shape, lurching through the darkened streets of Gridania, some of which didn’t line up with her memory.

She had reached her mother’s door, and when Rhaka had opened it and stared at her, her fevered mind had supplied a hurried and wild explanation, that the woman hadn’t recognized her, that somehow in the lurid, shifting landscape that had become her reality, Rhaka didn’t know who she was anymore.

With the sudden clarity of the feverish haze lifting from her mind and her eyes, she recalled Rhaka’s actual expression with a certainty that made her mouth go dry.

It hadn’t been an expression of seeing someone for the first time.  It had been an expression of seeing something and not being able to believe it.  The expression of someone who had sent a daughter to Carteneau, and opened her door to find a bloodied specter of the past standing there, unable even to speak.  An expression of horror, of uncertainty, mixed with the tiniest bit of hope.

“By the Twelve,” Rajiya croaked out in a broken whisper.  “I’ve made an awful mistake.”


End file.
